Best and the rest of the past week

Published 4:57 pm, Thursday, May 16, 2013

Thumbs up to Chuck Close, of New York, an artist and volunteer mentor with the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities and its national Turnaround Arts Initiative pilot program at Bridgeport's Roosevelt School. Roosevelt is one of eight schools in the nation to participate in the two-year program aimed at improving low-performing schools by engaging students through the arts. Close mentors 34 students from sixth to eighth grade at the school and has helped lead them into an appreciation of art. Since the program started in November, Roosevelt teachers report they are seeing less absenteeism and behavioral problems in art and music classes. Students are more focused on learning and seem more interested in a variety of subjects. "They're so much more articulate now and seem so passionate about learning," said Close about his students.

Thumbs up to the Sandy Hook Task Force for unanimously voting to rebuild a new school on the site of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has been closed since the tragedy there on Dec. 14. The task force agreed that the best building site was the existing one because, for one thing, the town already owns the land, so the project could start sooner rather than later. Spiritually, the site is also in keeping with the town's message: "We choose love." The task force's recommendation will now go to the Board of Education and ultimately to the state Legislature for the approval of funding for the new school. If the plan stays on schedule, the town would break ground in 2014, and a new school would be open by 2016. Meanwhile, Connecticut's U.S. senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, and U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty said they would push for federal money for the school.

Thumbs up to the state of Connecticut for delivering to Bridgeport and Trumbull a package of grants and loans to address brownfield cleanups in the two communities. Six communities will split some $6.5 million in state aid. The cost of cleaning up contaminated property is often a deal-breaker when a municipality is trying to market a piece of land for redevelopment. Bridgeport got a grant to clean up a number of old buildings and transform them into 57 affordable housing units and 20,000 square feet of retail space. The city also got a grant to help create 80,000 square feet of hydroponic greenhouses that will grow 800,000 pounds of produce on site for commercial sale. A loan to the town of Trumbull will help with a mixed-use redevelopment project. "With the right investment, these properties can bolster our economy and add to our quality of life," said Gov. Dannel Malloy.

Thumbs down to the five Bridgeport city employees who are members of Bridgeport's City Council and all voted in favor of a city budget that, of course, includes money for their own salaries. That would be Council President Thomas C. McCarthy, Warren Blunt, Richard Bonney, James Holloway and Richard M. Paoletto Jr. The conflict of interest in such a situation would seem apparent, but a bill in Hartford that would correct this situation, while still twitching a bit on the deck, appears to be mostly a dead fish at this point.